21 Jasper
JASPER
I slam the back door, storming off down the well-worn path towards my woodshop.
Hortie is such a bully. I know what she wants.
She expects me to call the coven. She’s not buying the masked mugger story for a second.
Our wards protect us from petty human crime, so she knows something else happened tonight.
But what am I supposed to do? What do I even say?
How are we expected to fight a soul-sucking wraith?
Heaving a sigh, I pause on the path and glance up. It’s a cloudless night. Stars twinkle overhead, framing a waning gibbous moon. I glance all around the yard. Crickets chirp in the long grass. Down near the creek, the frogs sing. It’s idyllic. Another perfect Burr Island summer night.
And yet, I’m in turmoil. I almost died tonight.
I felt the lift of my soul as it tried to leave my body.
Even now, it stirs deep within me, some sense of wrongness telling me to stay on my guard.
It was a narrow escape, only made possible because of Birdie.
I can’t make sense of it. What magic could a human wield to control a wraith?
From my spot on the path, I gaze across the silvery lawn to the east end where the vegetable gardens sprawl. Eight generations of Prescotts are buried in this soil, including Mom and Grace. Tonight, I almost joined them—
“Hello, sweet witch.”
Magic flares within me as I spin around. There, floating in the shadows, not ten feet from me, is the wraith. Raising both hands, I quickly try to think of every protection spell I’ve ever uttered.
“Warding against me will avail you nothing,” he rasps. “Your magic is no match for me.”
Fuck, he’s right. I don’t know the first thing about fighting off a wraith.
Clearly. Dropping my hands to my sides with a muttered curse, I take him in.
It was so dark before in the alley. It’s easier to see him here in this starlit field.
He floats as only half a man, his body supported with swirling shadows.
His face is hidden deep inside a black cowl.
Tattered robes hang from his shoulders, swallowed by the shadows that caress and engulf him.
“What do you want?” I call out.
“You.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to call for Birdie.
That’s why she’s here, right? I brought her home to be my shield against this monster.
So, why can’t I say her name? Instead, I’m backing away, placing myself firmly between the wraith and the back door.
“Kill me if that’s what you came for. Only leave the others in peace. ”
He drifts forward, not quite close enough to touch. Then he releases a rattling breath, almost like a sigh of relief. “I didn’t come to kill you . . . tempting as you are. I find you’re now worth more to me alive.”
I dare to scoff, backing up another step. “Why would a wraith let me live?”
He remains quiet, floating there in the night. I feel his gaze on me, even if I can’t see his eyes. “Did you mean what you said?”
Fuck, what is he talking about? I quickly give myself a headache trying to piece through the memories of his attack.
All I can pull forth are echoes of the memories he stole from me—riding bikes with Gracie to the beach, climbing to the top of the Cinder Pointe Lighthouse to drink, and fuck, and smoke pot with my friends.
Then pain. Terror. Birdie’s face floating in the darkness, her voice calling me back to life.
I press a hand to my temple. “I don’t—you fucked with my head!
My memories are all twisted up now. I don’t remember—”
“You said you would free me.”
With his words, a new memory flashes before my eyes.
I picture the wraith floating over me in the dark alley.
My fingers brush against the cold metal at his throat.
There’s a signature of magic I don’t recognize burned into the metal.
The wraith flinches away and all at once I feel his pain, his torment . . .
My hands ghost over my own neck. “You’re bound.”
“Did you mean it?” he asks again.
Wait, he came to ask me for help? This is madness.
And yet, I find myself taking a hesitant step closer.
My heart hammers with nerves, a sharp reminder that I’m still alive.
And I mean to keep living for as long as I can.
My coven, this island—they need me. “If freeing you will save my life, then yes. I’ll help you. Just tell me how.”
He floats closer. “You must kill the one who holds my bond.”
I can’t hold back the laugh that escapes me. “Seriously? You’re a soul-sucking assassin. Why don’t you just go kill them yourself?”
“Because a wraith cannot raise a hand in violence against one to whom they are bound,” he intones. “But I can help you destroy her.”
The assassin needs an assassin? As loath as I am to partner with the wraith who just tried to kill me, there’s a sense of poetic justice in that same wraith offering to help me kill the one who sent him. “What exactly would you need from me?”
“I need you to be dead.”
I glare into his cowled face. “Fuck you, asshole. You just said you need me alive—”
“Yes, and to keep you alive, I need you to be dead.”
“Well, how does that make any fucking sense?”
I can feel his growing irritation with me too.
But fuck him. He tried to eat me. Squaring his shoulders, the wraith holds my gaze.
“Earlier tonight, my mistress tasked me with draining your soul. If you want me to help you stay alive long enough to kill her, she needs to think I succeeded. Only with your death will I have the freedom to investigate this for you.”
“Investigate what?”
“Why she wants you dead, what else she plans for your island, and how we best stop her. I can be useful to you,” he goes on.
“I’m good at haunting. And hunting . . .
though you are a rare exception. No wards can stop me.
No realm is closed to me. More importantly, I have served at the whims of my mistress for nigh on two hundred years.
I know all her trusted coven members. I know every room and every floor of her manor.
I know her secrets. I know her weaknesses.
To own the truth, I am her weakness. If there was ever a creature to help you take her down, it would be me. ”
He’s offering up this witch on a silver fucking platter. Is there a downside to this? Part of me thinks this might just be some kind of cruel joke, a tease before he eats me again. But what if he really means to help me?
“All right,” I call. “Let’s say I’ve gone crazy. Let’s say I agree to help you kill this witch. What’s in it for me?”
He floats a little closer. “So long as you help me, you get to stay alive.”
“Sounds good. But once she’s dead, you eat me, right?”
He’s quiet for a moment, clearly considering. “I prefer to take my hurdles one at a time.”
My eyes narrow as I glare. “You have no fucking legs, asshole.”
He shrugs. “It’s a human expression. I mean to say let’s see what happens.”
“Meaning you’ll kill me.”
“It’s possible,” he admits. “But I will try very hard not to. Is that enough of an assurance?”
“No,” I growl, still not quite believing we’re even having this conversation. “You say you know this witch is after my island. What does she want?”
“That I don’t know. Not yet. But I vow to use my freedom and all the magic at my disposal to find out.”
Gods help me, I think I believe him.
“I do know she wants something,” he goes on. “She wants it enough to kill you. And she won’t stop with you. She never does. Experience tells me she’ll use me to kill off every member of your coven until she gets what she wants.”
I stiffen, heart racing. “So maybe I just kill you now then. Take out her most effective weapon.”
“You cannot kill me. You don’t know how. And we both know you want to save your coven and your island from my mistress’s wrath. Jasper Lyons Prescott, I am your only hope.”
Fuck, I really do believe him. Whatever this is, whatever his angle, he’s going to help me get myself and my coven free of this witch.
What else can I do but try? According to him, I’m dead either way.
I glance around the quiet fields before looking back to the wraith.
“You said you need me to play dead. For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
I curse under my breath. “Well . . . I mean, what would that even look like?”
He drifts closer, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Tonight, I told a lie. I told my mistress you were dead.”
“And she believed you?”
He nods. “Now you must stay dead. No one outside your coven can know you still live—mortal or immortal. Not one word of you breathing can leave this island until we’ve succeeded in killing her.”
“Shit,” I say on a breath. “How do we do that? I can’t exactly lock myself away in the attic. I have businesses to run, a coven to lead—”
“Yes, and we will need them all.” He inches closer.
“My mistress is powerful and well protected. One witch alone could never dream of taking her down. This will take careful planning. But we leap the first hurdle first. In the morning, you will convene your coven and tell them to spread the word across the magical community that you did indeed die in the night.”
“No.” I cross my arms over my chest. “No, that could put the coven at too much risk—”
“They’re already at risk!” The wraith swoops forward, getting right in my face. “You have no idea who hunts you. No idea the depths of her depravity. You are all at every moment already at risk. She has her eyes on you, Jasper Lyons Prescott. And Ludmilla Latchko never looks away.”
“Wait—Ludmilla Latchko?” The name sends my mind somersaulting.
I picture the cover of a glossy magazine: the stately silhouette of a woman standing before a palatial New England beach house, cocktail in hand, confident smile, brimming with power and purpose.
“You mean that ritzy art dealer who lives over on Fleet Cove?”